The Al Jazeera journalist who was killed in Gaza and mourned by Mayor Zohran Mamdani was allegedly a Hamas sniper, the Israeli Defense Forces has claimed.
The IDF accused Ahmed Wishah, a cameraman for Al Jazeera who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday, of being “a terrorist in Hamas’ military wing who served as a sniper operative,” BBC reported.
“In recent months, he advanced sniper attack plans and worked alongside his brother, Muhammad Samir Muhammad Washah, a key terrorist in Hamas’ rocket and weapons production headquarters, who also operated under the guise of an Al Jazeera journalist and was eliminated in April,” the IDF said in a statement.
Al Jazeera journalist Ahmed Wishah, who was killed in Gaza and mourned by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, was allegedly a Hamas sniper, the Israeli Defense Forces has claimed.
Ahmed Wishah was a cameraman for Al Jazeera who was killed in an airstrike on Saturday.
The IDF also published videos and pictures of what appeared to be Wishah armed with automatic weapons and snipers, along with his alleged Hamas military ID.
The Israeli military did not elaborate further on the images.
Al Jazeera, which has faced repeated accusations from the IDF that its journalists are linked with extremist groups in the Middle East, denied the “baseless” allegation and condemned the strike that reportedly killed five others in Gaza.
“These attempts deceive no one and cannot obscure the truth witnessed by the world,” the outlet said, calling it a “smear campaign.”
Mamdani invoked the cameraman’s death when he was grilled after branding the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as “monsters.” James Messerschmidt for the NY PostThe outlet warned Saturday that it would “take every available legal measure to prosecute the perpetrators.”
Colleagues described Wishah as “a kind, gentle and deeply principled person,” Al Jazeera reported.
Mamdani invoked the cameraman’s death when he was grilled after branding the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) as “monsters.”
“More than 1,000 Palestinians have been killed by the Israeli military since the so-called ceasefire,” Mamdani said Monday of the continued attacks in Gaza. “Even an Al Jazeera journalist, Ahmed Wishah, was killed this past Saturday by an Israeli strike.”
More than 260 journalists and media workers have been killed in Gaza, Yemen, Lebanon, Iran, and Israel since Oct. 7, 2023, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).
City Hall didn’t return a request for comment Tuesday on the accusations from the IDF.
— Additional reporting by Craig McCarthy
